Penumbra
by Coke Cam
Summary: Two months after the conclusion of "The Eyes of Maura Isles," Jane whisks Maura away on their honeymoon, but their joy and intimacy quickly turn dark as Jane's struggles with PTSD resurge unexpectedly. Working against time, Maura fights to convince Jane that she's truly forgiven her and that they can still have a chance at a life together.
1. Chapter 1: Prelude

**A/N: This is an unexpected continuation of the series begun with "Coffee, Tea or Me?", "Who's Up First?" and then "The Eyes of Maura Isles", which take a progressively more serious look at the relationship dynamics between Jane and Maura as they deal with the effects of Jane's PTSD on their intimacy. Humbly, I would really, really suggest looking at those stories first, or at least TEoMI-they're short, pretty funny, they won't bite! Rizzles vulnerable, Rizzles funny, Rizzles tender, all happy in the end.**

* * *

Maura Isles cushioned the bedroom door with her fingertips as she opened it, trying to muffle the sound of the latch. It was no more than a soft click, but in the pre-dawn silence of the beach cottage with its tiled floors and sparsely decorated open rooms even the smallest noise echoed.

She moved on the balls of her feet, her bare heels just skimming the floor as she stepped down the bedroom corridor and out to the living area that overlooked the beach. The sun was just rising beyond the dunes, but the house still held onto the cool stillness that had settled overnight.

Maura pulled the silk dressing gown more closely around her as she stood, looking down at Jane's sleeping form stretched across the worn brown leather sofa. One corner of the blanket she had brought out at 3 a.m., the last time she had come to check on Jane, was clutched closely in one fist and tucked under her chin. At the other end, one socked foot stuck out at right angles to the floor. Though utterly still, everything in Jane's body seemed stiff and uneasy, as if coiled to react to the slightest touch.

It took every ounce of Maura's resolve not to reach out, to let her fingers brush Jane's dark, tangled hair and coax her awake. She understood now just how casually she had been playing Russian roulette each time she touched this woman her wife and she wouldn't risk that again so soon, not after last night. She walked silently to the kitchen instead, allowing the small sounds of the morning routine gradually increase, hoping they would filter into Jane's subconscious.

By the time Maura returned to the living room, a mug of Ethiopian Arabica in each hand, Jane was beginning to stir. Her mouth twitched and then her nose until her entire body flinched inward, as if trying to shrug itself awake. Maura set the coffee mug on the low table by the couch, close enough for the aroma to begin working its way into Jane's central cortex. She retreated to the overstuffed plum-colored arm chair closest to the fireplace and wrapped both hands around her own mug.

_The mug_...

She looked down soberly at it. It was this exact mug that had led to everything, the one that Jane had given her the morning after they first made love and the one they had used for coffee every morning after that. It made her smile every time she caught a glimpse of the bright blue, red and yellow mosaic pattern, and she was reminded how Jane's face had lit up with that beautiful, crooked smile when she had realized that Maura felt the same way, and now...

"Good idea."

Jane's voice, always lower than usual when she first woke up, sounded like broken glass on concrete. Maura tried to keep herself from jumping but couldn't catch the first tremor.

"All detectives need their morning coffee." She tried to smile. "I knew that even before I married one."

Jane had pushed herself upright but was fighting gravity to stay that way. "I meant sitting over there," she said.

Away from her.

Maura knew better than to argue, at least not with words. She stood, picking up Jane's mug and bringing it to her. Jane took it with her fingertips, as if afraid she might touch Maura somehow in the exchange. Instead of retreating to the chair again, Maura sat on the edge of the sofa, her knee a half inch away from Jane's.

"Are you going to tell me where the keys are?" Jane asked quietly.

Maura shook her head. "Not yet."

Jane's eyebrows slouched, as if not sure what to do with such frank disagreement. "How does it feel?" she asked at last.

Maura thought of all the ways she could answer. How did it feel to wake up alone on her honeymoon? How had it felt to go from utter joy to blinding pain in less than a second? How did her nose feel after two ice packs and a handful of ibuprofen?

"It's not as bad as it looks."

That wasn't entirely true, but enough so that Maura didn't think she would have an outbreak of hives. She had checked herself in the mirror before going out to make coffee and was relieved that she didn't have the proverbial two black eyes. Ice the night before had done most of the work and a little concealer had hidden the rest of the bruising, but the real damage—what had been done to Jane's self-confidence, the trust between them, their marriage—was not so easily mended.

Jane put her mug back on the table and remained listlessly slumped against her knees. When she finally looked up, her eyes were empty, lost pools of black.

"How the hell did we get here, Maura?"

**36 Hours Earlier...**

"You're not gonna need that." Jane plucked the phone out of Maura's hands as they merged onto US 1, heading up the East Coast along the scenic highway.

"I wasn't checking work," Maura protested. "I promise."

"Better not—it's your honeymoon. Hell, it's my honeymoon! It won't matter anyway. You can't get a signal where we're going."

Maura cocked her head, mentally calculating the coverage map she had studied when selecting her cell provider. "Ogonquit?"

"Damn!" Jane burst out laughing. "You really are a genius. Yeah, just a little up the coast from there."

To keep peace with her mother, she had tolerated every antiquated wedding tradition and a few she swore her mother had invented, but kept the exact honeymoon plans secret even from Maura. Her family could have all the build up they wanted, but the honeymoon, Maura, this life together were hers.

Jane reached across with one hand, triggering the glove box despite Maura's protest that she needed to keep both hands on the wheel.

"Hypocrite," she chuckled as she pulled out the brochure. "You didn't say that last week when..."

"Momentary weakness," Maura said hastily. "And we were in my car which is an automatic and didn't need manual attention."

Jane murmured _Well, someone did_ as Maura kept her face turned down, folding and unfolding the brochure until her blush began to fade. "Oh Jane, this looks lovely."

"Yeah, I got us a cottage on the shore up there for the week. You've already traveled the world so I can't top that, but I figured it's time you saw your own backyard. It's still warm enough we can go out on the beach, check out the town, you like antiques, we can get lobster on the wharf, forget about work..."

"Sleep late?"

Eyes never leaving the road, Jane slipped her palm into Maura's, turning it up so she could kiss both rings. "Who said anything about sleep?"

Two months previously, not long after beginning an intense sexual affair, Jane had found out firsthand that Maura did indeed search all the pockets for non-colorfast items before loading the washer, which was how the engagement ring receipt had been discovered. Very matter-of-factly, Maura had let Jane know that if she would ever actually ask, then she would say yes. They'd only been dating a brief time, but Maura had unflinchingly embraced the detective's demons as well as Jane herself, and the step seemed as logical as breathing.

It had been just as logical for Jane to continue down the path of least resistance in letting Maura arrange a tasteful, private ceremony for family and close colleagues (the line between the two was blurring with every day) while she packed up her apartment and dodged her mother's attempts to envelop her in a giant bear hug. All that had come to a screeching halt just one week before the wedding when Maura said she had two requests.

"My uniform?" Jane's eyebrows raised of their own accord.

"Your dress uniform," Maura had corrected her. "Department policy allows an officer to wear it for formal occasions, such as a wedding."

"Sure, I can do that. Why?"

Maura seemed to hesitate and then gave that little shrug, just one shoulder in a delicate suggestion. It made Jane want to rip her dress off. "I...honestly...I feel it symbolizes so many of the qualities that made me fall in love with you: loyalty, devotion, courage, honesty, service. It represents how we met and...did you want to wear a dress? I'm sure I can find something that would be very flattering. You have wonderful bone structure; I may have mentioned that. It's not too late for a fitting if..."

Jane kicked herself for sounding as though she was protesting the request when all along she had been dreading that Maura was going to pressure her into some kind of strapless slit up the thigh sausage wrapper with three inch heels. _Hello, gift horse._

"No, that's great." Jane leaned forward, taking Maura's hands as she dropped her voice. "If I'd known you had such a thing for uniforms, I'd've gotten busted back to patrol officer."

Maura smiled coyly down at her pancakes and Jane felt a warm pulse of adrenaline hit her heart. Anything that made Maura happy made her happy too, and even though she didn't remotely understand the appeal, there was no question that Maura's knees went weak for badges and buttons. At first Jane had wondered if it were a fashion thing and after three seconds decided that she didn't give a damn as long as Maura was the one doing the unbuttoning.

"What's the other thing?"

Maura pursed her lips. "I think you should move back to your apartment until the wedding."

"Excuse me?" Jane blurted. It had been a trap. She had gotten out of wearing a dress and this was the price?

"I just think..."

"Hup." Jane held up one hand, her face a warning mask. "If you say anything like _it'll be more special_ or _we should save ourselves_, so help me God..."

Maura tilted her head. "I'm not certain what's left to save at this point, Jane."

Jane's eyes dropped to the pancakes on her own plate, an amorphous elliptical shape that Angela swore was supposed to be wedding bells. Her grin was more than half a smirk. "I guess I'm lucky your Moms like me or I'd be facing a shotgun, huh?"

"And don't forget, my father knows people." Maura seemed pleased at the way Jane's expression instantly sobered.

"Geez, I'm gonna be married to the mob. No, _literally_, I'm marrying a mob princess. So, um, how come I have to move out?" Her hand had crept under the table to rest on Maura's knee. "You might need me there to hand you towels or help kill something."

"Because my mothers—both of them—are coming in for the week and they're staying with me, which means all three of our mothers will be within earshot of the bedroom and we both know that's a recipe for a very awkward breakfast. And I killed the last three spiders, Jane. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. Many people are frightened of arachnids."

Jane slowly withdrew her hand and retreated to her side of the table in contrite silence. She didn't care if anyone knew how she felt about spiders, but eavesdropping house guests was another story. It was only Angela's delight in learning that all her prayers had been answered that had kept her from bawling her daughter out after discovering them in flagrante delicto in the laundry room.

_"Ma!" she had wailed. "Knock first!"_

_"I thought someone was in trouble!" Angela had wailed back."Maura, honey, are you OK?"_

_"She's fine," Jane snapped, "but I know who's not gonna be if she doesn't leave in the next..." _

_The laundry room door slammed shut and in the echoing silence they heard, very clearly, "Well, I guess that's one use for the spin cycle."_

"OK," Jane mumbled. "I guess I could use the time to go through my stuff again. Take cold showers."

Maura smiled in delight, which Jane thought was a really weird reaction to being separated from the person you wanted to be with for the rest of your life, but no one had ever accused Maura Isles of being exactly normal. She had pulled her purse onto her lap, emerging at last with what looked like an industrial Ziploc bag.

"Um, thanks."

"It's a cover for your phone to make it water resistant. That's not the same as water proof," Maura noted, "but you can hang your phone over the shower railing and it won't be damaged."

"Oh great, so Cavanaugh can yell at me first thing in the morning before I even get to work?"

Maura stood, as if going to refill her coffee, and leaned close to whisper in Jane's ear. "No, it's so I can call you next week while you're in the shower." Her fingertips lingered on Jane's forearm. "I might have some suggestions."

"Why wou...oh. Oh!"

_Oh. _Maura tilted her eyebrows at the look of dawning comprehension on her fiancee's face, then walked off to let her struggle and sputter to recover on her own.

Maura had always had an uninhibited, expressive side when it came to sex but this was new. The thought of what it would be like to be alone in the shower, drenched in warm steam, to close her eyes and then hear that voice, as smooth and...

Jane upended her coffee cup, trying to find some last trace of liquid as her mouth had run dry. She had never dared to hope she would ever have a satisfactory relationship given the psychic scars that Hoyt had left on her, ones that ran much deeper than the ones on her hands. It was easy to explain why she wouldn't sit with her back to the door or why she kept her service weapon in the nightstand, but so much harder to let herself be sexually vulnerable with a partner. It was incredibly natural to show her affection to someone else but receiving attention was another matter, and inevitably the flashbacks to the basement with Hoyt and all he had promised he would do to her crippled any chance of her climaxing with them.

It was Maura who understood, who accepted her completely while refusing to accept her problems, and helped her confront what they now humorously called Post Traumatic Sexual Disorder. Maura had been overwhelmingly patient and inventive in finding ways around the subconscious walls, and Jane had never imagined she would ever make the kind of progress that they had. There were still some things that weren't as easy as they should be and she wished Maura didn't have to be so careful around her sometimes, but every night they beat one more barrier.

Jane didn't want to think what her water bill was going to be for the final week in her apartment, but it was the last week she would ever spend away from the woman she loved and that was worth any check she had to write.

One week and several hundred gallons of hot water later, the Mustang came to a stop in front of a low-set slate blue beach cottage with white trim and shutters. Set back a hundred yards from the Maine shoreline, it stood up on stilts above the sand with a large deck that wrapped around the entire structure. Putting on the emergency brake, Jane hopped out, crunching across the crushed oyster shells of the driveway, and came around to open Maura's door.

"Careful, it's kinda uneven. I'll get our bags in and turn on the porch lights." Quickly, she popped the trunk and began unloading the luggage. "Aww geez, did you really need three suitcases?"

"Considering the length of the trip, the weather, and the possible variety of activities you hinted at..."

"Exactly. Why'd you bother with clothes?"

Maura broke into a smile that was both gentle and promising as she took the handle of a small overnight bag. "Well, you brought your uniform."

Jane shrugged with a bemused smile. "Lookin' at it." She hadn't changed after the ceremony except to unbutton her tunic collar. She had driven well above the speed limit in order to reach the cottage before midnight and, while she had an intuitive ability to avoid speed traps, on the off chance they were stopped on their way she might have been able to wheedle some professional courtesy and get out of the ticket.

"And everything else?"

Jane felt herself start to grin foolishly, an effect Maura routinely had on her. "Yeah, I brought the Bat Belt since you asked me, twice." She'd never been one to take advantage of her authority (speeding tickets aside), but if Maura had the periodic urge to be arrested by a Very Good Cop, well, all right then. She might have difficulty expressing her own needs at times, but she could make sure Maura's were met, no questions asked.

Maura's answering smile was delighted. "Well, I thought you might appreciate it if I packed my scrubs since you seem to find them so interesting, and at the most inappropriate times I might add."

"Ooo," Jane said, going on point. "The black ones?" She had gotten her hand slapped more than once for straying too close to the waistband when they happened to be alone at work, stealing the occasional kiss, but for God's sake, she was only human.

"Yes, the black ones, not that you ever let me wear them for very long. And since I've finally found a reliable trans-Atlantic delivery service for Agent Provocateur, I needed at least one bag for the new fall collection."

The keys slipped through Jane's fingers and ricocheted under the car. What she knew about haute couture fashion could fit in a shot glass, but since she started sleeping with Dr. Maura Isles, she had learned a hell of a lot about high end lingerie. She still wasn't sure how she had she convinced this woman to sleep with her, much less marry her, but...

"Jane, are you certain this is the right place?"

"Uh, yeah." Jane looked up from where she was groping for the keys under the left wheel well. "I double-checked on the GPS. Why?"

Maura was still standing beside the car as she looked at the darkened properties to either side. "It looks like the whole area is deserted. Maybe we turned too soon."

Jane, keys in hand, slipped one arm around Maura's waist. "That's part of the surprise."

Maura turned in her arms, fitting perfectly against her. "Surprise?"

"I booked all the cottages so the whole cove is ours." Jane kissed her then, holding her for an extra beat and gently asserting her claim. "No pesky neighbors, no one else on the beach, no one to interrupt. And that means," she kissed the tip of Maura's nose, "no police reports."

"Jane," she protested, "I'm really not..."

"Yeah, you are," Jane grinned. "But if you want to try and prove me wrong, let's get everything inside and test that theory."


	2. Chapter 2: Rising Action

Maura brushed the curtain back as she peered out from the second floor window. The moon, three-quarters full, was rising beyond the gently breaking waves and lit the bedroom well enough to see easily. Jane had gone to do a quick check of the windows and doors, making sure everything was secure for the night, while Maura started getting ready for bed.

In the few months they had been together, bedtime had rarely been a planned event. They might fall asleep together on the couch while watching television, or decide to make love after dinner and simply never get up again. Usually Maura had a sense from how the day had gone as to what kind of night it would be, and she gauged Jane's moods carefully to see if they would be able to press the boundaries of what Jane was comfortable with.

She would have given anything to go back in time and to prevent Jane from ever ever taking the Hoyt case, but it was that determination to protect victims that had led her to fall in love with Jane in the first place. Maura silently hoped that this night would mark another milestone for them, if only Jane would trust her enough to let down the final wall and allow her to...

As Jane's arms slipped around her waist, she smiled and sank back into the familiar, warm embrace. She threaded their fingers together and she covered the scars Hoyt had left.

"Hello, beautiful."

Jane made a grumbly noise as she buried her face against Maura's neck. "That was my line—you stole it!"

"You'll think of another one," Maura chuckled.

Very gently, Jane pulled her hair to one side, exposing her neck and shoulder. For a moment she shivered as she felt a cool breath pass across her skin and then closed her eyes as Jane's lips grazed the back of her neck.

"Gorgeous." One kiss.

"Amazing." Another.

"Wonderful, exciting, kind, sexy..."

Dozen of tiny kisses, each accompanied by its own word, slowly banished any thought but each other. Maura turned to face Jane and felt strong, gentle hands testing the silk straps of her negligee and nudging them off her shoulders. Those same hands slipped around her waist and they moved as if dancing, slowly inching across the moonlit floor to the edge of the bed. Somewhere between the window and the bed, her negligee became irrelevant. Maura felt the mattress against her legs and sank down, but instead of joining her, Jane had stopped and was kneeling awkwardly in front of her, almost as if proposing.

"Maura..." Jane swallowed and her face had taken on the hopeful, half-shy expression it did whenever she was working up her courage. "There's something I want to tell you."

Maura nodded, feeling suddenly solemn. Jane had taught her how to tease and joke as well as say serious things without saying them at all, but this wasn't one of those times. She found one of Jane's hands and pulled it into her lap.

"I know I gave you a hard time when you asked if I wanted us to write our own vows," Jane mumbled. "I said it was dumb because I'd already made a choice to be with you and nothing was going to change that. And it's still true," she said, almost fiercely. "Piece of paper isn't what says if I'm yours and you're mine. But I really did have something I wanted to say, I just didn't want to do it in front of anyone else because it's not their business. It's just for you, so..." Jane swallowed again, looking even more nervous.

Maura realized she had been holding her breath and then tried to release it as softly as she could. "You can tell me anything," she murmured. She was gently rubbing one thumb across the back of Jane's hand now. She had stumbled on that one day as a way to calm the detective when she was irritated and nervous, and it seemed to be working now as well.

"Maura, I've loved you since the instant you walked onto that crime scene in a skin tight Italian whatever it was that could've stopped traffic and it damn sure stopped my heart. I only went up to talk to you because I figured you'd cut me off and that would fix what I was feeling, but you had to go and be the nicest, kindest, gentlest person I've ever met."

A small noise of protest escaped Maura but the look on Jane's face stopped her.

"I couldn't believe it when you wanted to be my friend," she confessed. "So since that was all I thought I could hope for, I made myself a promise, that I would always take care of you, no matter what. Even if you got swept off your feet and married a billionaire philanthropist, I'd still be there for you, even if you didn't think you needed me. I've only ever made one promise like that before, when I became a police officer and I took an oath that I would protect and serve, but really it's...it's you," she stumbled. "You're the one I took that oath for."

Jane was looking up into her eyes with such earnest devotion that Maura felt herself unable to breathe. "Before my job, before my family, before anything else in the world, I'm yours. I want to protect you even if you don't need it. I want to serve you every day, Maura Isles, starting now."

"Jane, I..." Maura's head was spinning from a combination of lack of oxygen and blood rushing from her heart to her face and back again. She was supposed to be good with words, she should have thought of something to say, but now Jane had taken her breath away entirely.

"Please." Jane's lips were on her throat, kissing upward to her jaw and Maura's eyes fluttered closed. "Please say yes," she whispered between kisses, "please, Maura. Let me be the one."

"You are," Maura whispered back. Her arms slid around Jane's waist, pulling her up and onto the bed as they slowly sank back together. "You're the only one, you always were."

She had thought that given the week's separation they would find themselves frantic, starving for contact, but Jane held them to a deliberate pace. It was as if they had been apart for so long that she had to re-learn every inch of Maura's body for herself and wanted to savor each moment as if there might not be another chance. She had never doubted Jane's strength and devotion, but those seemed even more apparent in her restraint and in how she slowly she built the tension between them.

Maura buried her face in Jane's hair, breathing in the scent she had missed all that week, trying to burn each detail into her memory. Jane's mouth was on her neck, already having marked her a half-dozen times, and Maura thought deliriously that she didn't care if the bruises didn't fade by the time they returned to work. _Let them wonder, let them be jealous..._

"J-Jane?" she managed. "Please, s-swee..I-I'm ready." Jane had become more insistent now, exploring, nudging, inciting her but refusing to move her past the brink. Maura's fingers were scrabbling desperately at the pillows, trying to find something to anchor herself against.

Jane hummed against her skin, tracing delicate patterns across her stomach with her lips. "I'm not sure."

"I-I am," Maura gasped.

Jane chuckled softly. "You're so beautiful like this."

Maura struggled for words, her hands clutching at Jane's shoulders now. "Like...like what?"

"When you need me," Jane whispered. "Jesus, you could have anyone, but when you need me like this, I..."

"I, ohgod...y-you don't know...how...p-please?"

Jane didn't answer, having far more important things to do with her mouth and Maura's protests crumbled into incoherent half-syllables. Her body was a single fused nerve, twitching to Jane's every touch as tenderness gave way to possessive urgency. In moments her body was cresting, head thrown back, shaking uncontrollably as she slipped and fell into the warm, safe darkness that was Jane's love.

Those same hands were now skimming over her skin, comforting her and drawing her back, until Maura had recovered enough to open her eyes and see Jane's hopeful smile which broke into ridiculously self-satisfied grin as Maura smiled weakly.

"Welcome back." Jane was rumbling just outside her ear. "I thought I'd lost you for a moment."

"You did," Maura replied plaintively. "All week long I missed you. We tele-showered...but it's not the same."

Jane was ghosting kisses across Maura's face. "Are you sure you're OK? I think you were speaking in tongues there for a minute."

Maura let out an embarrassed groan, clamping one hand over her mouth. "It was French—I'm sorry, I can't help it, it just happens sometimes."

"Well, I hope it was good review, whatever it was." Jane grinned, then found the pulse in her neck and tapped out the beats with one index finger against the mattress.

"I think you should rest," she pronounced.

Maura couldn't help smiling at the mock serious way she pronounced it. "Why is that, Dr. Rizzoli?"

"You still have an elevated heart rate, shortness of breath and, I hope," she grinned, "you're seeing stars. It's official—you're lovesick. Might be contagious," and Jane began to wheeze.

Maura laughed, pulling Jane to her and kissing her forehead. "Does anyone but me know how funny you can be?"

"Nope, top secret. They'll never get it out of me."

"Oh, I think I could." Maura's voice had steadied at last, turning sultry with implication.

Jane was lying on her side, still playing with tendrils of Maura's hair as it fanned out across her shoulders. "Oh really?"

"Really."

Maura nuzzled at her wife's throat, hovering there to gauge the reaction. This had never been a problem for Jane, but it was impossible to reliably predict how she would respond from night to night. A quickened breath could be a good sign or it might be an indication of rising nerves.

"Good effort," Jane allowed. "Gonna have to try harder. That...OK, that's good."

Maura smiled around the earlobe she had taken gently between her teeth. They had a quiet understanding that anything that felt good _was_ good, even if it was simply lying snuggled together and watching re-runs of _Dr. G: Medical Examiner_ while Maura pointed out procedural errors. It seemed that every successful time together made the next one come more easily (pun intended, Jane would say), and Maura was nothing if not committed to making sure every time was a success.

As soon as Maura lightly pressed forward with one knee, Jane instantly shifted to allow her to twine their legs together and they settled into an even more intimate embrace. Jane let out a low, pleased sigh at the contact and Maura felt an answering flutter run through her stomach at the knowledge that she and she alone could make Jane feel this way.

They lay for a time simply kissing, small offerings that grew in depth and trust until Maura gently nipped Jane's bottom lip and received the reaction she'd been waiting for.

"Brave," she murmured. One kiss.

"Loyal." Another kiss, a little lower.

"Devoted. Kind. Fierce. Faithful..."

Slowly she kissed her way down Jane's lean body, continuing the litany she reached her waist and felt the firm abdominals flex in response.

_Yes...yes, tonight, sweetheart, let me..._

"True. Courageous. Loving..."

Maura let her hands rest lightly against Jane's thighs, her thumbs stroking along the soft skin at the crease as she gently urged them further apart. All was still, and then she felt Jane's hands squeeze her shoulders.

"I...your eyes," Jane said haltingly. "They're beautiful. I just...I need to..."

Maura smiled as she returned to lie beside her wife, fitting their bodies together again. Jane did best when she had a clear visual connection between them in order to keep herself from slipping into a flashback. Maura had hoped that the tension of being separated as well as a week of very successful phone sex, all subtly focused on the idea of that most intimate kiss, would help them break through that final barrier tonight, but she didn't allow any hint of disappointment to show.

"Feel free to stare," Maura whispered, smiling. Jane gave a tiny nod as her breath caught, her body already beginning to respond. "Listen to my voice, stay with me," she said gently. "I love you, sweetheart, do you know how much?" Jane nodded and swallowed hard, breathing carefully to remain with her in time.

Maura shifted, making herself vulnerable as she lay fully on her back and guided Jane to lie on top. While she had discreetly confirmed that Hoyt's assault, as horrifying as it had been, hadn't reached a sexual stage before Jane had been rescued, the threat and Hoyt's repeated attempts had been enough to scar an already shy and wary young woman. Any way in which Jane could feel in control and less vulnerable would help.

As Maura let one hand slip down between their bodies to replace her leg, Jane's eyes widened and a tiny whimper escaped her. Maura stroked through Jane's long hair in time with her other hand as the tension grew and Jane's breathing began to rise. "Just feel, don't fight," she urged softly when Jane moaned, eyes closing.

It took such concentrated effort for Jane to struggle past the images that surfaced when she came close to climaxing that often she was virtually silent, and Maura had learned to measure their progress in other ways. When Jane inhaled sharply, breath catching as every muscle tensed and her lips pressed together, Maura knew they were already much closer than she'd realized. She slid one hand to cup the back of Jane's neck, gently drawing her head down to rest against her shoulder.

"That's good," she whispered as Jane's body shivered against her. "Take your time, sweetheart." _I love you—tonight, tomorrow, always, forever. We have forever. _Coaxing steadily, she gave every reassurance and promise Jane needed to be able to let herself go at last in a muffled, groaning climax that seemed to last for minutes as she shuddered and lurched against Maura. It was scientifically irrational, but Maura felt herself responding as well, as if some of the indescribable relief Jane felt was being passed on to her through pure skin contact and they shared the release together.

As the trembling passed, Maura still held her close for long minutes as she dozed in a satisfied haze. "You...'re, you OK?" Jane's words were slurred as she finally struggled to push herself up on her elbows. "Sorry, I..." Her grin was bleary but unmistakeable.

Maura beamed up at her, reaching to trace the line of her wife's jaw with one fingertip. "Your BMI is extremely low," she said matter-of-factly. "Any other doctor might recommend that you put on a little weight actually."

"Another doctor? You want someone else's hands on me?" Jane let her head drop and playfully tried to smother Maura with her hair which left them both laughing.

"No," Maura begged, "then I'd have to break my own oath."

"Which one is that?"

Maura turned on her side towards the window, allowing more room for Jane to nestle behind her. "To do no harm. Because believe me, anyone who tried to lay a hand on you would...well, I don't know, but it would be unpleasant."

Jane shifted and rolled a few times, trying to get comfortable in the unfamiliar bed, before spooning against Maura with one arm protectively around her waist. Even before they had begun their affair, Maura knew Jane hated lying on her back, yet another connection to Hoyt.

"You'd get away with it. No one would believe it was you."

Silently, Maura wondered if anyone knew the lengths she would go to in order to protect Jane, this woman who never admitted her own vulnerabilities, never allowed herself to ask for help, but Maura knew the truth.

"Do you have enough covers?" she asked. "Is this all right?"

"No," Jane murmured sleepily.

Maura felt cold sliver of uncertainty running up beneath her ribs. "It's not...what's not all right?"

"It's not all right," Jane murmured again. "It's w'nnerful." She locked her hands around Maura's and let out a soft, contented sigh as Maura pulled her closer. "An' tomorrow night, even better. Y'won't regret it. Marryin' me. Gonna protect you...never be hurt 'gain."

Jane Rizzoli had never been more wrong.


	3. Chapter 3: Conflict

Belated thanks to siDEADde for a very kind and thorough second set of eyes, but most of all to speakers77 for politely asking for another entry in the "Coffee, Tea or Me?" universe. As always, she was right.

* * *

The next morning Jane made good on her promise of bringing Maura coffee in bed in her favorite mug. That one and the mug Maura had given her in return had come in her bag, wrapped safely in her lucky Red Sox hoodie. It protected her most precious things, Jane had said as she slipped the hoodie over Maura's head so she could get out of bed and join her downstairs. They had a leisurely breakfast overlooking the ocean, sipping coffee as they talked about absolutely anything but work, and finally interrupted when Jane grew distracted by the ties on Maura's silk pajama bottoms.

_"Jane, I don't think this is what the architect had in mind for the breakfast bar."_

_"What?" Jane murmured. "It's so you can eat in the kitchen."_

_"Jane!"_

_"Am I right?"_

_"J-Jane, I..."_

_"Tell me I'm right."_

_"Y...yes, ohgod..."_

_"Sorry, what?"_

_"Y-yes!"_

By late morning, dressed finally, they ventured out along the wooden boardwalk through the dunes to explore their deserted stretch of beach. They walked barefoot, hand in hand, along the tide line with their pants rolled up as Jane picked out the smoothest, flattest shells to teach Maura how to skim them into the waves. She rewarded her with one kiss for each skip and Maura proved to be a very motivated student.

A trip to the grocery store in the nearest town for supplies—pasta, bagels, Greek yogurt, sunscreen, Jane's beer—turned into a lunch of lobster roll, thick with chopped celery and drawn butter, while sitting out on weathered picnic benches by the food shack. (Not for the first time since meeting the Rizzolis, Maura had congratulated herself for always carrying handi-wipes in her purse).

By the time they returned to the cottage, the sun had warmed the water enough to venture in and Maura coaxed a grumbling Jane into changing into the swimsuits she had bought, on the off chance, and then led her wife out onto the beach.

"I just think it's too skimpy," she complained. Maura glanced back over her shoulder and verified that Homicide Detective Jane Clementine Rizzoli was literally dragging her feet, leaving twin furrows in the sand.

"I thought that was the point of making sure the cove was completely deserted, so you wouldn't have these attacks of inappropriate modesty."

Jane's eyebrows shot up and she came to a complete halt. "Inappropriate what?"

"Fine then," Maura said in a way that told Jane she had just made a terrible mistake. "If you think it's not appropriate on me, then I suppose I'll have to take it off." She found one neat bow as it dangled from her hip, taking the string between thumb and forefinger.

The bikini bottom hit the sand along with Jane Rizzoli's jaw. The top joined it a second later, forming a small pool of cobalt blue in contrast to the water just beyond the dunes.

"I take it that's an improvement?"

Words were momentarily more than Jane could manage. _Humanah humanah humanah_... "I...I meant _my_ suit?" Jane croaked. "I-I didn't...yours is great, but...uh..."

"Well," Maura said thoughtfully, "I did pick them to match, so I suppose if I'm not wearing mine..."

Jane's reflexes were numbed by shock and general lack of sleep, so Maura had a 10 yard head start to the top of the first dune with Jane's bikini top grasped in one hand before Jane jolted herself to life, her feet kicking up a fine spray of sand as they raced across the beach. Jane's longer legs were gaining fast and Maura had just reached the water as she caught up, scooping the shorter woman into her arms and they fell into the surf together, their laughter lost in the rising cries of the seagulls circling above.

An hour later, finally exhausted by the waves (and, for Jane's part, the mental effort of trying to follow Maura's lecture on tidal patterns), they had retreated to dry off and lie on the beach, the tips of their fingers intertwined as they dozed in the late afternoon sun.

"Maur...have an idea." Jane's voice was sleepy and thick with sun. She turned on her side on the beach towel, reaching out with one hand to shield the sun from Maura's eyes.

"Mmm?"

"Let me make you dinner."

Maura's eyes widened cautiously. "What, ah, would that entail?"

Jane grinned. "Gimme a little credit. You think I escaped Ma's house without picking up a few things? You do everything for me—let me do this, please?"

Maura fervently hoped Jane never asked her to falsify lab results, because she realized in that moment that she would do absolutely anything for those pleading dark brown eyes.

Maura tried to follow her usual rule of chewing each bite at least six times, but that was proving impossible with such an incredibly delectable dish. It was all she could do not to load her fork up with more pasta than it could hold and at least half a meatball just to keep the meltingly rich taste alive in her mouth.

Jane kept both hands in her lap, watching her intently from across the small round table out on the back deck. Maura's job, after she had been banned from the kitchen and accused of spying on the secret Rizzoli recipe (although Maura had argued she now had every right to it), had been to set up dining al fresco which she had done enthusiastically, even down to napkin rings made out of dune grass.

"So." Jane cleared her throat. "I'm guessing that either you like it or you're running a half marathon tomorrow and you need to carb load."

"This." Maura covered her mouth with one hand so she could speak with her mouth full—her mother would die of embarrassment. _Your mother would die if she knew about a few other things you've put in your mouth. _"This is amazing."

"Yeah, it is," Jane grinned. "Ma's veal meatballs with papadrelle. She says it's what made Pop fall in love with her, although maybe that's not the good endorsement it used to be."

"Anything that could produce such a wonderful woman must have been a very good idea." Maura's words were utterly sincere, if somewhat muffled by pasta. "And the wine is excellent. Lt. Cavanaugh asked me a few weeks ago for some advice, but I thought he was trying to impress your mother not choose a wedding gift or I wouldn't have made such an expensive recommendation."

"You're worth it...which is easy for me to say on his dime," Jane laughed. "Is it good? I want it to be good. You deserve it."

Maura nodded vigorously as she chewed through another bite with unforgivable speed. "It's amazing. The chef at _Marea_ may need to get the recipe from you."

"Yeah, over Ma's dead body."

"I'm almost afraid to ask what's for dessert."

Jane looked up, her smile slanting to one side as she spun her own fork to carefully gather tendrils of pasta. "You can't guess?"

"Oh—your mother's tiramisu. That's excellent, I agree."

The way Jane slowly shook her head, a sly grin growing on her face, left Maura confused for an instant before she caught the implication.

"I can't believe I walked into that," she said with an embarrassed smile. "On my honeymoon no less." Maura gave a sudden, surprised little laugh. "I never thought I'd hear myself say that."

"Really?" Jane was leaning her head on one hand, staring at Maura in the intense, dreamy way she had been ever since they'd begun seeing each other. Truthfully, she'd been doing it for much longer than that but Maura had been too focused on work to properly appreciate the devotion with which Jane had been showering her. "You could have had anyone—seriously, Maura, just snap your fingers and I bet guys would've left their wives on the spot. Gorgeous wives! You really didn't think you'd get married?"

Maura thought for a moment, sipping her wine as she tried to think of how to explain. "I think I always knew I _could_," she said carefully, "but there was never anyone I wanted, not like that. Not until you."

"Really?" Jane's voice was softer now, her eyes surprised and child-like. It would be so easy to crush this woman, Maura realized with fear and wonder. Inside this tough, brash exterior there was an exquisitely delicate heart and it was her task, her entire mission in this life, to protect it_._

"Really." She reached across the table to take Jane's hand. "Yes, I'm sure I could have had any number of socially advantageous relationships, but none of them—_none_ of them, Jane—would have done for me what you have."

Jane glanced away but looked ridiculously pleased with herself. "I'm sure there's gotta be someone somewhere who can, uh, get on your wavelength. Y'know. Keep you happy."

Maura began to chuckle and found that she couldn't stop, not even when Jane began to look confused. "I'm not talking about sex. I know it must seem like that's all I have on my mind after the way things have gone for us so far, but do you understand that sex has nothing to do with how I feel about you?"

Jane looked utterly nonplussed. "Not even a little?"

"All right, maybe a little," Maura allowed. "But if it all stopped tonight, then what's left between us is still more than most couples ever have in a lifetime. You make me happy, Jane. Not what you do, but you. You don't have to try—you just _are._"

Jane seemed to be struggling not to blow her off with a self-deprecating remark and finally let herself accept the compliment. "But, um, you don't mind if I sorta tackle you every few hours, right? That was kinda the plan for the week. I know it feels like we spend more time in bed than anything else, but I think that's because I spent so many years thinking we'd never even get to hold hands that I built up all these ideas, just to let off steam, and now it's real...you're real...and it's like the dam broke. I hope it's not overwhelming you?"

As Maura opened her mouth to reply that this was the furthest thing from a problem that she could imagine, the overhead porch lights went out and they plunged into darkness.

"Well," she chuckled. "That's one way to create a romantic mood. Did you want to start on dessert already?"

"Believe it or not," Jane sighed, "that wasn't me." She carefully wiped her hands on her napkin, a small heartening sign, Maura thought, that she was having a good influence.

"The rest of the lights are on," she called after Jane who was already back inside the cottage. "There might have been an electrical surge which caused the fuse to overload in order to protect the circuit. Did you know Thomas Edison patented the fuse as a part of...Jane? Are you listening?"

In Jane's initial inspection of the cottage, locating all the major escape routes in case of fire and performing a cursory evaluation of the foundation, she had noticed the small utility area where the owners stored beach chairs, an umbrella, a sea kayak which had seen better days, and some basic maintenance equipment. That was the logical place for the fuse box, that and the fact that she hadn't seen it anywhere else.

Jane was too relaxed after the day with Maura, a blissful uninterrupted day together, to be more than mildly frustrated at the electrical mishap. She absently called back to Maura, who was rattling on something about the history of alternating current versus direct current, that she would be right back. Maura might have memorized the entire electrical contractor's code for the state of Maine, but that wasn't going to help her at the moment.

She turned on all the kitchen lights as she went to the door leading to the utility area, then caught herself, one foot out in mid-air as she realized there was a short flight of stairs leading down into it. When she had gone into the room the day before, she had accessed it from the ground parking level beneath the cottage that was set up on low stilts, but of course there would be stairs leading down from the house's interior access.

_Don't be stupid_, she told herself as she placed heavy, deliberate feet out onto each step_. It's a utility room. All you need to do is flip the fuse and then go back and finish dinner and take your wife to bed. It's not like spiders are lining up and taking numbers to go after you._

The light from the kitchen didn't carry any further than the foot of the stairs and Jane kicked herself for not bringing a flashlight down with her in the dark. Her foot struck the edge of a beach chair, or maybe a spare cooler, and sent it skittering. She mumbled a few choice curses and kept patting along the wall until her hand found the cool flat metal door of the fuse box.

A noise behind her made Jane turn, trying to make out the shape coming towards her down the stairs, and the floor dropped away beneath her and she plunged back five years in time to another basement.

_The air was cold and dank. The only light came filtering in from the top of a short flight of stairs where she had left the door half-open._

_He had found her._

_Somehow, just as she was finally happy, happy in a way she never thought she could be, Hoyt had returned to find her here in this deserted cottage. Maura would already be stunned and he would do what he had done to a dozen couples before them—rape her while Jane watched and then finish what he had started all those years before._

_No._

_Not this time._

_Not today._

_She would kill him before he could lay a hand on her wife. If it was the last thing she ever did, she would protect Maura._

_Jane didn't wait for him to come to her—she ran at the stairs, throwing herself at Hoyt's outline, taking him down beneath her before he could use his wiry strength against her. To her surprise, Hoyt was weaker than she remembered, going down under the first punch. He wasn't fighting back—that made no sense—just rolling and protecting his head with both arms._

_And she didn't remember him crying either. He had hissed her name in her ear, but never sobbing like this._

_Jane...J-Jane...Jane, please, open your eyes! _

_It's me, it's me, please, look at me._

_Jane? Oh God, Jane..._

**12 hours later...**

Jane put the coffee mug back on the table and remained listlessly slumped against her knees. When she finally looked up, her eyes were empty, lost pools of black.

"How the hell did we get here, Maura?"

Maura ran through the facts— Jane would know best, she had chosen the cottage and planned the route—but she knew it wasn't a literal question.

"I made a very serious error in judgment." Maura kept her voice calm and steady. "I never should have followed you into the basement. I should have stayed back from the doorway and talked to you first."

Jane's hands were knotted together in her lap, unable to be left unattended. "I hurt you." She swallowed convulsively. "I-I...I could have..."

_When she had finally squirmed out from under Jane, keeping her head covered to ward off the flailing blows aimed at phantoms, Maura had scrambled back up the steps and to the first bathroom she could find. An unnatural calm, the product of her medical training, had enabled her to find a washrag and stem the worst of the blood coming from her nose. Unfortunately, she hadn't remembered to lock the bathroom door._

_Minutes later when Jane pushed inside, Maura met her gaze in the mirror. Jane's eyes were unfocused, casting around the bathroom but not seeming to understand what she was looking for. _

_"Maur? Did you hear something? I was..." Jane looked at her in confusion, pointing back over her shoulder. "I thought someone broke in but...I don't feel good."_

_Calmly, Maura had wiped the skin around her nose and mouth, trying to clean all the traces of blood but more was trickling down._

_"Oh my God, Maura...you're bleeding." Jane cupped her face in both hands, tilting her up to the light. "What happened?"_

_"What do you remember?" Maura asked carefully._

_"I..." Jane's eyes went foggy again and her weight sagged against the edge of the sink. "I was in the kitchen I think? My head is killing me. I-I guess I'm looking for some Tylenol? No, something about..." She came back to herself suddenly, looking at Maura's tear-stained face again. "Baby, let me see—did you walk into something?"_

_If ever Maura Isles had good reason to lie, it was now; but she knew that if she did, nothing between them would ever be the same again._

_She tried to couch the words as carefully as she could, gently guiding, until she saw the realization hit Jane's eyes, the rising horror and guilt as she pulled away. Jane was stumbling through the house, too stunned to speak, to walk straight, or to remember where she had put the car keys._

_But Maura did. She got to them first, hid them, and when Jane demanded them, she stood her ground. No one was leaving. No one was running. They would stay here at the cottage as long as it took to fix things between them even if it meant staying in separate beds until Jane forgave herself and using up every scrap of the considerable back leave they had accumulated between them. _

_They had committed; they had sworn; this was for life._

Maura covered Jane's hands with her own but allowed her to pull them away at the contact. Instead, she let her palms rest on Jane's knee, refusing to move away entirely.

"Jane."

"I hurt you, Maur," she choked. Her eyes were beginning to well up, that beautiful cleft chin trembling with bottled emotion. "I remember it all now, not just what you told me last night. You wanted to go to bed and my head still hurt, so I stayed out here and...and I had a dream but about the other dream except it wasn't a dream, and I..."

"Jane." Maura dropped her voice to a clinical tone, cutting through the rising emotion with that one word alone. "You protected me."

Jane stared at her in dejected shock, mouth half-open. "I _hit_ you."

"No, you hit Hoyt. Every instinct you have said that he followed you into that basement to attack you, to rape me, to kill us both." Jane's hand lay limply across her lap but with the tips of two fingers unconsciously outstretched. Maura moved one hand closer, just brushing now, and they came to twine together, like two magnets that simply couldn't resist their polarity. "You risked your life to protect me from him."

"Are you...are you sure?" The aching uncertainty nearly broke Maura's heart all over again.

"Yes." She was somehow sitting on her knees now beside the couch, at eye level with Jane. "Yes, yes, I'm sure." She was pressing her lips to Jane's hands, pouring every ounce of love into each kiss. "You didn't have your weapon and you threw yourself at him anyway. You were protecting me, you would have died for me...Jane, no one's ever been willing to do anything like that for me."

She had slid her fingers into Jane's hair now as she rested their foreheads together, rocking slightly from side to side. Small tremors were running through Jane, seeping into her as Maura drew the stress out like a poison. She put her arms around Jane, steadying her as she sat beside her again on the couch.

"All right? Sweetheart, look at me." This was the same voice Maura used when they were in bed together—comforting, calm, but commanding. Jane responded automatically, raising bloodshot eyes. "You have to trust me. Everything is going to be fine."

"Today maybe." The words echoed hollowly. "You tell me it's a mistake and you forgive me this time because it feels like an accident, but what about the next time? What about the night I dream about him and I throw an elbow in my sleep and we're not so lucky? What about when you show up for work with a split lip and people start talking?"

"It could happen," Maura admitted. She knew the clinical studies, knew the statistics, and even though she knew Jane's heart even more, they couldn't ignore the possibility of another episode. "We're going to make sure that if there is a next time, then it's a very long time from now, and it seems far more likely that if anyone at BPD suspected you of behaving violently then they would arrest you."

Jane stared at her for a moment, then seemed to hiccup as the first tremulous chuckle emerged, followed by another and another, then full-fledged laughter.

"I wasn't joking." Maura was perplexed. "They certainly arrested me at the drop of a hat."

"No, it's my mother," she managed finally, "my mother would come after me with a kitchen knife if she thought I even looked cross-eyed at you."

"Well, I do enjoy shopping with her," Maura said modestly. "But we'll do whatever it takes to make sure she doesn't, all right?"

Jane nodded, sighing now that the nervous laughter had faded. "I mean, we talked some about children and I know we agreed we were undecided for now, but after this?" Her eyes were wide, head shaking. "You were able to get away, but I can't risk that, I can't."

Maura couldn't argue with that, but it seemed like such a secondary concern for now. She had to make sure her wife was safe; any other hopes and dreams would have to wait.

"I didn't marry you in hopes that you would give me a family," Maura said firmly. "You already have. I didn't marry you because I'm incomplete or unhappy. I actually have a very fulfilling life. But one thing I knew, as absolutely as I know that E = mc2, was that after we were together that first time, I never wanted to be apart again. I'm not leaving, Jane. I knew you had demons and I accepted that, just like you accepted the truth of my family and what that could mean. But change is stressful, even wonderful change, and the primary thing we have to do is to reduce that stress as much as possible for you."

"Is that what Oprah told you to do?"

Maura thought, then shook her head. "No, we've never met."

"It was a joke," Jane sighed. "Apparently I suck at those too."

"You're not a joke to me," Maura said firmly. "I didn't want you to think I was worried, but I've been doing some reading in the _New England Journal of Medicine_ and..."

"Not surprised."

"...there's some good evidence to support the idea of the brain's neural network functioning like an electrical circuit. In cases of a PTSD trigger, such as your seeing a shadowed figure coming at you in a basement, your brain reacts to the stress like a power surge. To try to protect you, in effect, your mental processes blew a fuse."

Jane had opened her mouth to protest but closed it instead. What had been resignation was quietly shifting to acceptance as she considered what Maura said. She seemed to grow less stiff, allowing herself to slump a few centimeters towards Maura.

"You're the genius. What're we going to do?"

Maura smiled gently and reached out to tuck a stray piece of Jane's hair behind her ear. "I think I underestimated the amount of responsibility you put yourself under thinking that you have to take care of me, even when the threat is only in your mind. I have a plan, but you won't like it."

"I don't think I could not like anything more than I don't like myself right now. Hit me. I mean..." Jane shook her head. "What is it?"

"You're going to let me take care of you, Jane."

* * *

A/N: One of the nastier to deal with aspects of PTSD is its "custom made for your own personal hell" nature, so since one size does not fit all, it's very difficult to find effective solutions. I can only offer a glimpse into what's worked in situations I'm familiar with and would never presume to offer an overall template for what is a very complex disorder.


	4. Chapter 4: Falling Action

Maura made a late brunch of omelets fromage with crushed fresh herbs and then coaxed Jane out for a walk on the beach. To keep Jane occupied and engaged with her surroundings, Maura kept up a steady stream of commentary about the marine life in the waters just offshore: the Maine lobster was the heaviest crustacean in the world; right whales could live for over seventy years; stormy petrels formed monogamous pair bonds and spent their entire lives at sea, only coming to land to breed.

"You?"

Maura pushed the wind-blown hair back out of her face as she turned to walk slightly sideways. It was the first time Jane had spoken since they left. "I'm sorry?"

"Would you..." Her voice seemed rusty and ill-used. "Rather be out there? Somewhere else."

_Away from me?_

Maura slipped her arm through Jane's, drawing them alongside each other so they had no choice but to match their steps. The sky was overcast today and she was glad for the light jacket she had put on just before they left, but what she really wanted was Jane's arm around her shoulders.

"The rare and endangered species Maurica Islesica is native to the Boston area and seems happiest when sharing a nest with its preferred mate, the Janica Rizzolica."

"Hmm." Jane's eyebrows shrugged as if not sure exactly how true that was. "I guess she has the pick of the flock. But if she's as smart as she seems to be, she prob'ly should've picked someone else."

"But since she really is that smart," Maura countered, "then she must have made the right choice."

Jane didn't know how to respond to that, but her arm slipped around Maura's shoulders and remained for the entire walk back to the cottage.

§ § §

At the store the day before, Jane had put a frozen pizza in the basket as much out of habit as to tease Maura that her body's cells couldn't make it through a week without their regular infusion of pepperoni. Maura had tossed her own gourmet mushroom pizza in the basket at the time, citing a statistic about the healing properties of fungi. Now she carefully sliced each in half and reassembled them on the broiling rack and stood, arms crossed, in front of the oven as the timer steadily ticked down.

Jane sat at the rectangular kitchen table, mission style in clean lines and cut from white pine. Before the pizza went in, Maura had brought out one of their wedding gifts, Korsak's joke: a two thousand piece jigsaw puzzle of Boston Red Sox memorabilia, stretching all the way back to their first World Series win in 1903.

_So you won't get bored on your honeymoon_, the card had read.

Maura had carefully slit the lid free on three sides so the top could flip up and display the finished image upright. She had spread the pieces out while Jane watched docilely at first until she spotted two pieces that went together, part of Curt Schilling's jersey, and then she began to move the pieces for herself and group them by color.

Maura knew from her brief rotation in psychiatry that repetitive, easily accomplished tasks could be soothing and helpful for an agitated patient. She wouldn't go so far as to call Jane her patient given their relationship, but the principle was the same. Every success, even in something as easily accomplished as a puzzle, rebuilt mental confidence.

Seeing so much baseball imagery spread out on the table, Maura was reminded of something Jane had explained to her just a few weeks before.

_No, they don't even publish your stats until you've had a hundred at bats in the majors._

_Oh, I see! Because the sample size isn't large enough to be statistically relevant?_

_Yeah, well, that too. Or because you don't have your sea legs yet, so it's not fair._

_So I shouldn't be keeping track of our sexual activities yet, not until we've been together for a hundred days?_

_You...you keep track of...us?_

_Of course. How else am I going to ensure that we avoid the kind of routine rut that plagues most couples by the five year mark? I think it's called "bed homicide." No, that's not right..._

The oven timer snapped Maura out of the memory before she began to tear up. What had followed that night was a passionate attempt to distract her from getting out her smartphone to demonstrate the graphing program she had downloaded for the purpose of tracking their mutual sexual satisfaction, instead giving her a new entry to log that surpassed anything they had done so far, which was saying something.

She neatly cut each half of the pizza into three slices and slid them onto separate plates before bringing them over to the table along with their drinks and a stack of napkins. She asked Jane questions about the different parts of the puzzle she had put together so far, pulling her chair around so they sat together and she pressed her leg comfortably against Jane's. Together they worked out most of the bottom edge pieces while Jane recounted the story of Carlton Fisk's home run in the 12th inning of Game Six of the '75 World Series.

"You realize, Jane, that his arm motions had nothing to do with the final trajectory of the ball."

"It's baseball—don't try to apply logic."

"Obviously," Maura murmured as she went back to the kitchen for more ice. When she returned and lifted her final piece, she came eye to eye with a large slice of pepperoni perfectly centered in the midst of her mushrooms.

Her chin jerked back in surprise and she turned to Jane. The faintest hint of a smile was twitching at one corner of her mouth. Maura felt her heart lurch with hope as she saw a glimpse of her Jane creeping back. "All right then." With thumb and forefinger, she lifted the pepperoni slice to her mouth, but held it trapped there between her lips. She turned to Jane and waited, one eyebrow raised.

Hesitating, almost as if she doubted that the offer was real, Jane leaned forward to accept the pepperoni, then froze as Maura pressed forward to bring their lips together in a kiss that was warm, reassuring and not to be ignored. She pulled back after a moment, leaving Jane to sit blinking with traces of pepperoni on her chin.

"Here." Maura daubed at Jane's face with a napkin, then folded it back in her lap. "How was that?"

"Um...spicy?"

Maura gave a small satisfied nod as if that had been the whole idea. "Oh," she said suddenly, "it's 2:30." Without stopping to explain, she went to the living room and flipped through channels on the television.

"Is this something I should remember," Jane asked dryly, "or is this just you being you?"

Maura smiled but didn't answer as she searched past soap operas, afternoon movies, and PBS itself which caused Jane's eyebrows to rise in shock. She stopped as she overshot, then went back a channel and the first inning of...Maura didn't know, but she thought of them as the indigo team and the chartreuse team.

"When we first became friends, I began checking the Major League Baseball website," Maura said awkwardly, "so I would know what nights you might want to watch a game and maybe, if you were already at my house, I could convince you to stay. I didn't understand why then, but I knew I wanted us to be together and that was the only way I knew how to ask you stay. As it turns out, it's almost impossible _not_ to find a baseball game between April and October, but it became a habit."

"I hope I'm a hard habit to break," Jane said. Her grin was weak but determined.

"Incurable." She set the remote control down and came to take Jane's hand, tugging her up from her chair. Jane followed her, wary but curious, as they walked to the living room couch.

"Lie down," she urged quietly. "On your stomach."

Jane seemed too exhausted to question her and squirmed and flopped for a moment, finally settling with a sigh,

There was plenty of room for Maura to sit on the edge of the couch, her hip brushing against Jane's side as she perched. She pushed a long strand of dark hair back so Jane could watch the game unimpeded. Her eyes seemed alert, flicking to follow the movement of the ball as it passed between the players in a dizzying series of throws that resulted in an out and the indigo team's manager erupting from the dugout. That seemed to make Jane happy as her lips twitched into a smile and then mouthed, _Gotcha_.

Maura began to run her open palm in small circles across Jane's back, letting the light friction build warmth and connection. All she knew about baseball she had learned inadvertently from Jane, absorbed through the osmosis of companionship and affection. It was enough for her to know that this provided Jane with a psychological comfort to match the physical, both of which were essential for restoring her balance after last night.

At the end of the inning, she moved both hands to Jane's upper back and began to massage the muscles toughened over time from hours at the gun range. As Jane sighed quietly, her fingers contracting against the couch cushions, Maura felt the tension melting away completely beneath her touch.

"Y're good," she mumbled.

"When I took my acupuncture certification, they also offered a supplemental course in shiatsu. I don't think it's as effective as deep tissue massage in terms of physical therapy, but it was enlightening. I could tell you about the history of the discipline and the differences in principles between Western and Japanese practices, but I think that might send you to sleep even faster than I'd intended."

"M'be." The mumble was more of a contented sigh now as Maura's thumbs bore down into the tight muscles to either side of Jane's spine, stroking and coaxing up and down until she felt everything in loosen by several degrees. "Wha' w'ld…um…"

"What would I what?"

"I dunno. Shut up, Jane," she mumbled.

Another inning passed and Maura patted Jane's shoulder. "Turn on your side for me." Clumsy with relaxation, Jane made her body cooperate, untangling her long legs so she was lying with her whole front towards the television. Maura slipped one hand under Jane's shoulders and the other under her head to lift her up by a few inches so she could slip onto the couch, settling Jane's head back into her lap.

"Which team do we like?" she asked as she took Jane's left hand between both of hers. Carefully, she kneaded the palm, pressing her thumb and fingers back, stretching the tendons until they released their ache.

"Y'r team," Jane sighed. "God, that feels amazing." Maura chuckled as she laid Jane's arm back across her body and switched to the other.

"We're on the same team," she said. "And we're going to win."

As Jane hummed in contentment, Maura let her fingers massage the muscles at the base of the skull, then slide through the dark, tangled hair and across her scalp in a gentle, sensuous rhythm. She finally settled on the temples, stroking in smooth circles as Jane's protesting mumble turned into wordless murmuring.

Maura watched her wife's face in the reflection of the television, monitoring carefully as Jane's eyes began to flicker and the indigo team fell further and further behind.

By the next inning, she was fast asleep.

§ § §

Jane woke gradually, slowly orienting herself to being turned around on the couch and watching what seemed to be amateur bull riding from Mesquite, Texas.

"Maura?" She stretched slowly, trying to bring her body online as well as her mind. She felt surprisingly well-rested and a glance at her watch told her that she'd slept several hours more than she'd realized.

"Maura?" she called again. When there was no answer, she pulled her legs free of the blanket Maura had covered her with and shuffled out to the bay windows, searching for her on the deck. When she found the remnants of their abandoned dinner from the night before, Jane felt a sick punch to her gut at the memory of how everything had gone so horribly wrong.

She tossed the blanket over the back of a kitchen chair and began to move methodically through the cottage. Maura must have lain down to take a nap herself and she felt guilty all over again at the thought of her wife being abandoned like that.

_Better that than with you, _her mind replied.

As she checked each room but still hadn't found her, Jane forced herself to keep a handle on the irrational rising panic.

_Maybe another fuse went out and she had to go down in the dark by herself because she can't count on you. You promised to protect and serve? What a fucking joke. You can't even keep the lights on without punching hers out._

Jane pulled open the door to the basement but stayed well clear as she called down. No answer. She slammed the door, turning circles in the kitchen as she thought furiously. Maura had to be here, she didn't have anywhere else to be, she wouldn't just...

_Leave?_

_Oh, she might. If she were smart she would._

_She gave you everything—her affection, her devotion, her heart, and oh God that body—and you gave her a broken nose just 24 hours in._

_She has the keys. She's smart. She should. If you loved her, then you'd tell her to leave now._

Jane bolted for the front door, the one place she hadn't thought to look, and when she found the chain lock hanging loosely, the latch ajar, a terrible wounded noise erupted from her chest. Already dreading the sight of an empty driveway, Jane tore the door open and came face to face with her wife.

"Hi, you're awake," Maura said, but her smile dimmed with every syllable. "Jane, are you all right?"

Dumbly, Jane shook her head as she pulled Maura to her and wrapped her in a gradually tightening embrace. Over and over she murmured, "You're here, baby you're here, thank God." Maura held still as much from shock as anything else, but finally let out a weak squeak when Jane squeezed all the air from her lungs.

"Oh God, are you OK?" Jane instantly let go but carefully kept both hands on Maura's shoulders. "Please tell me you're OK."

"I'm fine," Maura assured her, "I promise, but what happened?"

"I, uh..." Jane swiped at her nose with the back of one hand, pushing away unshed tears. "I woke up and I couldn't find you so I started looking and I even checked the basement, but I still couldn't find you so..."

Maura slipped her arms around Jane and pulled her close again. "I'm so sorry—I didn't think you would wake up, you've been sleeping like a tree."

"It's a log, you sleep like a log, but OK, it's OK," Jane mumbled to the top of her head. "It's my fault."

"How is that?" Maura chuckled.

"I dunno. I'll figure something out. It must be my fault, always is."

"Jane," she said softly. "Stop. I just needed something out of the car. You're not responsible for everything."

"I am. I _am_. I'm responsible for you. I have to protect you, but it's..." _It's me you need to be protected from._

Jane hadn't even realized she'd started to cry until Maura was wiping her face, murmuring in worried tones.

"I'm sorry, Jane, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you alone so soon. Here." She pressed a kitchen towel into Jane's hand and settled her on one of the bar stools. Maura stayed close, resting her chin on Jane's shoulder and waiting until the tears ran their course and Jane let out a heavy, shuddering sigh. "Better?" she asked quietly.

Jane nodded, taking in a steadying breath. "Yeah, sorry—I don't know where that came from."

"I think you were so busy worrying about me that you didn't realize how scared you were last night. It was just a matter of time. Let's see..." She searched Jane's face, smiling until Jane smiled back. "Still beautiful, but let's wait until you're sure you're done before you help me with dinner,. Clam chowder is supposed to be a little salty, but no need to add tears."

Jane laughed in spite of herself, raising one hand and swearing she was finished. "What can I do?"

Maura held up a bottle of clam juice she had set aside on the counter. A Ziploc bag full of crushed ice cubes had been sitting next to it and the sight of the homemade ice pack made Jane's stomach lurch all over again—it was her fault Maura was hurt—but she shoved the thought aside.

"It rolled out of the grocery bags when we loaded the trunk," Maura said. "That's what I was looking for out in the car."

Jane took the bottle from her, their fingers overlapping. It wasn't much, but at least she could do something. "My bottle-opening hands are at your service. Where'd you learn how to make chowder? That's not exactly French."

"Well," Maura admitted, "it's my first time so it's something of an experiment." She had pulled out another of the bar stools and sat with one foot pulled up into the rungs as she stirred the stockpot and directed Jane which cans to open, drain and add.

They fell into a comfortable silence, waiting for the pot to return to a simmer. "So how'd you get so good at the comforting thing?" Jane asked. "I mean, you always told me that you didn't really have much emotional connection at home. Even though your Mom's really come around, you missed a lot of that growing up, but it's like you just get it." _Me, you get me._

"I suppose when you don't have something," Maura said carefully, "and you want it as much as I did, then you think about it and you know exactly what you would need if it were you. I simply never had an opportunity to show anyone before. But then I met you." Her smile was sudden, brilliant and adoring. She held up a brimming spoonful of chowder, cupping her hand beneath it. "Blow."

Jane obeyed and then carefully sipped.

"C'est bon? I made some modifications from the recipe on the label," Maura explained happily. "Pan roasting fresh corn before adding it with the potato causes the natural sugars to undergo a caramelization process which infuses the chowder with a sweetness to counter the creamy, savory base, which..."

Maura was suddenly silenced by Jane's kiss which gave her the opportunity to experience the flavors first hand. Breathless now and eyes closed, Maura's hands had curled into the front of Jane's shirt and she had to shake herself to open her eyes and let go.

"So I take it you liked it?"

"Yeah," Jane said softly. "And the chowder's not bad either."

* * *

_To be concluded in Ch. 5: Climax_

A/N: As noted previously, I am not a professional in the field of psychiatry so I can only write from what's been effective in my personal experience. And because it's fiction, let's compress the timeline a little. :-)


	5. Chapter 5: Climax

Stomach comfortably full, Jane felt the effects of dinner coursing through her and taking care of more than just her hunger. Her head was finally clear for the first time all day; she felt strong and alert and, most of all, hopeful. When Maura said she wanted to go for a walk, she didn't feel exhaustion trying to pin her down on the couch.

The clouds had cleared unexpectedly after lunch and sent the temperature rocketing back up and it remained pleasantly warm just after sunset. Neither of them had bothered with shoes as they walked out the boardwalk to the ocean.

"Maura, um...what about the sharks?"

"Which species?"

"The kind that bite you. When you go swimming in the ocean at night. That's what _Shark Week_ says." Jane could tell her voice was rising for no good reason—she was a cop for Pete's sake, they didn't cover that at the Academy.

"We're not going swimming, although you have a 200% greater chance of being killed by a vending machine falling on you than by a shark."

"OK, did you find some incubating baby horseshoe crabs, what?"

"Astronomy lesson." Maura led Jane away from the boardwalk and into the sandy slope of the dune line facing the water. The tide was low, leaving the sand packed and smooth, glistening under the nearly full moon. "Did you ever study astronomy in school?"

"Uh, yeah, and for field trips we went up in the space shuttle. I think you overestimate public education in Boston."

"I don't underestimate you," Maura said softly. "You always tell me I'm a genius, but there's so much you understand that I can't begin to grasp—when suspects are lying, why Det. Frost is really asking for the witness's phone number, the appeal of NASCAR, all sorts of things."

"Yeah, well..." Jane shrugged. "I'm sure you could teach me a few things too." _As if you already haven't._ "So are we looking for constellations? I've got exactly two in my repertoire and one of them's iffy."

"No." Maura had slipped her arm around Jane's waist and rested her head against her shoulder as they looked out at the ocean. Without a nearby town or any lights from the adjoining cottages, hundreds more stars were visible than they could usually see in Boston. The moon was one day from full and was shimmering brightly over the water.

"Do you know why they call the moon full or half or crescent, but the moon doesn't actually change its shape?"

"Yeah, it's turning and there's, um, the sun and...stuff." _And stuff?_

"Yes, it has to do with how the earth, the sun and the moon are oriented towards each other. They turn in cycles so what we can see of the moon appears to change, but the physical shape doesn't. It's similar in the case of an eclipse."

Now Maura was drawing in the sand with one toe, circles overlapping circles.

"The moon is always there, but sometimes the sun gets in the way and overshadows it. This part," she scratched a faint squiggle between the moon and sun circles, "this is the penumbra. It's the shadow that keeps you from seeing what's really behind it."

"Is there going to be a test?"

Maura smiled and nudged her with one shoulder. "Yes."

_Great._ "What was the middle part again? _Pen knife, pen light, penitentiary..._

"Penumbra, but this what you need to remember. Sometimes things come up from your past and they make you turn away so it looks like you're only half there, or not at all, like the moon. But you're not gone; you're coming back. Or a memory casts a shadow over your mind, like an eclipse. Like last night," Maura said quietly. "There's simply something in between us for a little bit, but it's going to pass. It's dark inside the shadow and it's frightening, but nothing about you has changed and nothing about me has either."

"This isn't some kind of predictable thing you can track, Maura. It hit me out of nowhere and then I hit..." Jane felt her chest begin to hurt as the memory, crystal clear now, came back to taunt her.

"If my sneaking up behind you in a basement isn't a predictable trigger, then I don't know what is. Even aside from that incredibly stupid mistake, I should have seen how the pressure was building inside you. You've put so much stress on yourself trying to make everything perfect because you're afraid I'll leave if I see some of the things you struggle with that it's actually made it harder for you."

Maura was facing her now, abandoning her neat diagram in the sand. She slipped one hand up to Jane's collar and there was no choice but to look down in her eyes. "You want to protect me, but you're doing it by keeping parts of yourself from me and I can't help you if you won't let me see what's hurt."

Jane's own eyes felt warm and scratchy which she tried to blame on helping sauté onions for dinner. "It's not your job, Maur."

"Actually, it is. When you said you didn't want us to write our own vows, I respected that, but I know what I would have said, so I'll say it now."

Before Jane could try to distract her with a joke, she felt Maura's hand slipping down from her collar to loosen the top button on her shirt and then the next.

"Jane Rizzoli..."

Three more buttons were gone and the shirt followed, drifting to the sand.

"...I fell in love with you a thousand times. Each time you walked into the morgue, you brought strength and courage with you. You brought hope. You made the Queen of the Dead feel alive for the first time in a very long time."

Maura's fingers were working at her jeans now, the new ones that actually fit right, and now they were sliding off and somehow taking her underwear with them.

"When you trusted me enough to tell me about your hands and all that happened that night, I fell in love all over again with your honesty. And then, when I realized just how vulnerable and afraid you were of my reaction, I understood how brave you truly are."

Her fingers were on the clasp of Jane's bra and the slight tension gave way as the hooks unfastened, and then a whole new tension came rushing in. The breeze from the ocean was still warm on her skin as she stood completely naked and defenseless, trembling until Maura ran her hands lightly up both arms. She calmed instantly at the touch.

"I took an oath too, Jane. I promised to heal and to remember that healing is more than drugs and surgery; it's warmth and sympathy and love. It's healing a whole person, not just treating a symptom."

Maura's shirt, a long sleeved moss green top, had joined hers, followed by the calf length capris and a few pieces of lingerie that probably cost more than everything Jane owned.

"I want to devote my life to you, on healthy days, on sick days, and every in-between day; and wherever I can help, I swear to you, Jane, I will with every resource I have, mind, soul...and body."

At that final word, Maura locked her fingers through Jane's as she pulled her wife into a kiss that balanced on the fine line between passionate and possessive. She slowly sank down onto the slope of the dune, pulling Jane with her so that she sat straddling Maura's lap with her bare knees sinking into the soft sand. Maura's arms were around her, hands splayed across her back as they had been that afternoon but the intentions were very different now.

Maura was usually more cautious when they began to make love, carefully checking in with her at every point until they were fully swept up in the moment. She hadn't hesitated tonight though, her hands slipping up to gently cup and tease, then suckling until Jane let out a shuddering sigh. Her hands closed on Maura's shoulders, pulling her even closer and her fingers began to rhythmically clutch in time.

"It's all right." Maura's warm breath was against her ear. "There's no one for miles, no one but us."

Jane had been going to weakly protest what it would look like if they were arrested but Maura was gently nipping the skin where her neck joined her jaw and all that came out was a pleading whimper. Maura was murmuring against her skin, every endearment and encouragement they had ever shared as she pressed her body to Jane's,

All of Jane's ability to think had been washed away with that first kiss and it took a moment to realize that the sand beneath them allowed Maura to slide even lower as she kissed her way down her chest and stomach, leaving a burning trail of kisses. Maura's fingers were tracing maddening patterns over her lower back as if trying to distract her from...from...

Jane wrenched her eyes open and realized that the softness of the sand had let Maura burrow and slip until she lay beneath her completely, which meant that at any moment that mouth would reach...

"God, Maur, that's..." She choked off her incoherent plea as she felt soft curls brush against her legs, gently tickling as warm kisses began to cover her inner thighs. She couldn't ask for this, she couldn't, and what if she liked it too much? It was wonderful when Maura lost control, but what if she did and she hurt Maura again? She could, it would be so easy, or what if she got lost in time? Or if...

"Maura, I...I need to see..."

And there they were, two bright golden hazel lights shining up at her, eyes that she could fall into, utterly and hopelessly. Even without words, she could read everything Maura thought and felt in her eyes—love, compassion, kindness and most of all desire.

Jane opened her mouth, still not sure what she was going to say, when her breath seized in her chest. Maura's hands were exploring her, stroking, gently revealing every secret and leaving her even more exposed somehow as the nuzzling kisses moved closer and closer.

"Maur, this...you don't have to...I-I mean..." _ohjesusgodinheavenwhatthefu..._

Then there were no words as her body arched uncontrollably, electrified by the warmest, gentlest of kisses, but a kiss so persuasive that she had no choice but to give in, her chest heaving for air. One of Maura's hands smoothed across her back, wordlessly urging her to relax, to trust and fall into this. Slowly Jane curled forward, unable to stay upright as the waves slowly began to build within her. She fell clumsily, catching herself on the sand with both elbows, her hair falling down in a curtain around them as Maura lightly caressed her hips.

Her throat was burning with the effort of choking back the guttural sobs that every touch coaxed out. She trusted Maura completely, but she hated how helpless she sounded even though it was the utter truth. She was Maura's, completely and wholly—raw, bare, exposed and owned—and with every kiss she was being destroyed and remade. Jane heard herself as if from a distance, her muffled cries desperate, lost, questioning, and Maura answering somehow.

_It's just us—let me take care of you..you're so beautiful like this...don't hold back...Jane, please, let me..._

At those soft encouraging words, Jane felt the ache began to pulse and intensify, circling higher as their connection built. As her body began to shudder, tipping over into the invisible chasm, Maura slipped both arms around her hips, holding her securely. Eyes closed and fingers digging helplessly into the sand, Jane felt all control slip away and she was giving herself over utterly to Maura, falling, falling. A warmth was blossoming through her with an ever increasing heat as her body arched upwards, head back, face to the stars, and the litany of Maura's name crested in a scream of triumph, disbelief, gratitude and pleasure; and as she fell back to earth, caught safely in Maura's arms, all she heard was the sound of the waves, carrying the name back to them.

* * *

The smell of coffee managed to penetrate the bed covers Jane had pulled over her head. She shifted and rolled in the bed, trying to burrow back to sleep.

"If you like the bed that much, I suppose we could bring it home with us." Maura's tone wasn't quite as teasing as it should have been. Jane threw the covers back. Her wife was staring thoughtfully at the bed frame as if measuring how it could be made to fit in the Mustang's trunk.

"It's not the bed that I like," Jane said hoarsely. "It's the woman in it with me. Now stop holding my coffee hostage or I'll have to call in the SWAT team."

Maura's smile was beaming and she set the coffee mug down on the nightstand within easy reach. "By 'SWAT' team, do you mean..."

"It was a joke," Jane said hastily. "It's too early in the morning for double entendres, Maura, even for you."

The demure one-shouldered shrug said that it was really never too early for anything if you were properly motivated. She sat on the edge of the bed, crossing her legs, and her tailored denim shorts rode up slightly. "Jane," she said, frowning. "There's sand in the bed."

"I got sand lots of places," Jane grumbled.

"Well, I did suggest a shower."

Jane waved one warning index finger. "I've fallen for that before with you. It's never 'just a shower'."

Maura didn't reply—her smile did that for her. "I accept that you use jokes to distance yourself from difficult topics, but I want to thank you for trusting me last night."

Jane discarded two jokes and nodded. "Well, thank you," she said, "for putting up with my sh...stuff." She wanted to say more, to tell Maura that she couldn't begin to say how much she loved her, how no one had ever reached her that way before, and to apologize for what had happened, for being the reason that Maura had woken up early to carefully apply more concealer and slip back into bed before Jane could see how the bruising had spread in the night.

Maura slipped her hand into Jane's, as if anticipating the apology and rendering it unnecessary. "I know that you would like to put all of this completely in the past, but I also know that's not how these things work. What matters more though is how I work."

Jane had been busily drinking her coffee which was a convenient way to avoid eye contact, but a sentence like that was hard to ignore. "Overtime and in Prada?"

"Well, that too," Maura agreed. "No, I mean that I understand that psychological recovery is not a strictly linear progression and I'm not distressed by what might seem like a setback. Recovery proceeds along a spiral path with alternations between..."

"Maura. Maura. _Maura_."

"Yes?"

Jane held out her mug. "I'm gonna need more coffee if you keep using words with that many syllables."

Maura folded her hands in her lap, duly chastened. "It simply means I understand that we take each day as it comes, and I could not be more overwhelmingly happy to get to spend each one with you, regardless. And if I can anticipate something that I think will help avoid a future problem, then I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen. So I have a question."

Jane passed her mug to Maura, planted both hands on the bed and shoved herself upright against the pillows. She accepted her mug back from Maura and took a long appreciative sip. "All right," she sighed. "What's on your mind?"

"How early do you think we would be back next Monday? I wanted to schedule a delivery and it requires someone to sign."

"A delivery of what, strawberries for Bass?"

"No, I pick those out myself from Whole Foods. It's a bed, actually a new one."

"A new what? Why?"

"A bed." Maura bounced once for effect which completely shattered Jane's concentration as a few other things bounced along with it. "There's nothing really wrong with mine except it's mine and I'd like something that's ours. I wanted to set it up as a present for you and I have one on hold, but there just wasn't time before the wedding. I can't show you a picture since we can't get a cell signal—which, by the way, might be the best wedding present of all, although the anonymous gift certificate to a certain online store is a close second."

Instead, Maura pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged on the bed, animatedly describing all the features as if she'd memorized the brochure, which she probably had, how it was the largest king sized bed available commercially with built in drawers underneath for extra storage, adjustable reading lamps, and a split mattress with separate controls for firmness.

"It has a return policy," Maura assured her. "I thought we could try it and see if you liked it better. I accept that sometimes we need different things, but I want to find ways to take care of what you need and still be together. I know it's been a little uncomfortable with my bed being smaller than you're used to and I think we should do everything possible to make sure you're getting the best quality sleep you can. Proper rest can play a crucial role in...Jane, what are...?"

Jane had slid her coffee mug back onto the night stand, then rolled forward to push Maura back onto the bed beneath her. "I don't mind a smaller bed," she growled, "not if it makes you sleep closer, and I don't mind being tired if we stayed up for all the right reasons. So does it have Magic Fingers?"

"No," Maura laughed, closing her eyes and arching into the kiss. "I think you have to provide those, but I don't think that will be a problem."

"And how long do we have to return it?"

"30 days."

Jane nodded in satisfaction. "That should be plenty of time to test it out."

"Honestly," Maura teased her. "You're like the Princess and the Pea when it comes to mattresses. One's too soft, another is too hard. That's what led to all this in the first place, the night you tricked me into helping you haul a mattress up to your apartment."

"Well," Jane drawled, "if we're going to be keeping it for life, like I'm keeping you, then we should make a structured scientific evaluation to see if it'll meet our needs."

"Oh!" Maura was interested now, looking up at Jane with wide eyes. "What kind of protocol should we use?"

"We should test each of the mattress settings and make love three times at each one to be sure it's supportive enough."

Maura looked surprised but hardly displeased. "Three times?"

"Mmm hmm. Once with you in charge, once with me in charge, and once," Jane whispered in her ear, "where we get kinda drunk and just see what happens. Do you think we can do that in 30 days? I mean, I don't wanna rush you."

"Oh, I think we could manage it," she chuckled. "Do you want me to put it on the calendar?"

Jane pulled back as if she'd been kicked. "No, Maura, dammit, stop already with the Google calendars! I can't figure out how to delete 'em off my phone and the reminder started going off last week while I was in Cavanaugh's office. Frost tried to turn it off and spent all afternoon asking me what "JT" stood for."

"What did you tell him?"

"Justin Timberlake."

Maura looked perplexed. "Who?"

"Geez, Maur, I'm not gonna tell him it meant Jacuzzi Time and who the hell needs a reminder alarm for that anyway?"

Before Maura could launch into her very well thought out explanation, the doorbell rang. "It's all right," she soothed when Jane began craning her neck to look out the window. "It's probably just the rental manager checking in or someone at the wrong cottage."

Jane wasn't happy with either scenario. "I paid 'em enough to leave us alone."

"It's fine, just stay right where you are and I'll go check." Maura had slipped out from under her and was halfway to the door.

"No, gimme a sec—I can get dressed." Not, Jane realized, that she remembered where her clothes were.

Maura spun back, one hand on the doorframe. The sunlight outlined her body, dressed in a cheerful blue and white striped crew necked jersey that just brushed the waistband of her denim shorts. Her smile radiant and not for the first time Jane thought who the hell needed the sun when she had Maura? She had a feeling any lingering mental shadows didn't stand a chance.

"Don't bother—when I get back you're not going to need your clothes."

Downstairs, Maura went on tiptoe to check the peephole before opening the front door to a stoop shouldered man in his early 60s wearing a ballcap and lightweight olive fatigue cutoffs with a t-shirt advertising a charity 5K race from several years earlier. From the extra 40 pounds hanging over the waistband, he hadn't been the one running. He stayed back a respectful pace from the door and raised one hand.

"Hiya," he said brightly. "Sorry to disturb you before noon. I charter a fishing boat out of Oarweed Cove and we were trawling last night just off shore and heard a disturbance, thought it might have been at one of the rentals. I've been checking but it looks like this is the only occupied unit right now and I just wanted to see if you'd heard anything last night?"

"Oh? What kind of disturbance?"

"Well," he pointed back at the truck where it idled in the drive, "my boy and I were drifting off shore and setting our nets and we thought we heard someone screaming _murder, _somethinglike that. It went quiet pretty fast and it's hard to get a signal out here so we didn't call it in, but I wanted to check and see if you'd heard anything?"

Maura had a creeping feeling that she knew exactly what the fisherman had heard, but for once she hadn't been the one responsible. Before she could step out on the porch, Jane's voice came echoing down the stairs. "Hey Maura, who is it?"

"Maura!" he snapped his fingers, "That was it, not _murder_. That...that's you?"

She smiled awkwardly and glanced back over her shoulder. "It's nothing, Jane," she called. "I'll be right there." She shut the door behind her and stepped onto the porch.

"Everything OK?" the fisherman asked in concern.

"Great!" Maura said brightly. Everything was absolutely wonderful in fact, if she could just keep Jane from coming downstairs and realizing that last night had been a little less private than Maura had promised. "We're up for the week. The weather's been gorgeous."

"Yeah, it has been," he brightened. "Last good sun before fall. You enjoying your vacation?"

Maura took a deep breath—if she lied, there would be hives and Jane would find them and spend all morning trying to make her confess what she had lied about. "Honeymoon actually."

The fisherman nodded but didn't seem taken aback. "Well, congratulations, sounds like you're having a really good time. I-I...mean..." Slowly, he went a deep purplish red.

Maura debated asking if there was a history of coronary disease in his immediate family and decided instead to simply say, "Thank you, we are."

As some of the color beginning to recede, the fisherman ducked his head a few times and shuffled a foot back. "Well, have a nice...y'know..." Then he turned back suddenly. "It's full moon by tomorrow night and the tides are shifting pretty fierce. I don't know if we'll be going out at night for the rest of the week, and if we did it'd be down at the, ah, the other end of the cape."

"Thank you," Maura said sincerely. "I'll bear that in mind."

Shutting the door, she composed herself before climbing back up the stairs. Jane was sitting upright in bed with the covers pulled around her like a lumpy teepee. "Who was that?"

"Just a fisherman," she said truthfully as she climbed back into bed. Jane instantly made room for her, wrapping them both in the covers as they curled up together. "He said the tides are strong right now with the moon being full. I think we should skip swimming for a day or two."

Jane put on a look of fake disappointment which Maura couldn't resist kissing away. "I guess we'll have to come up with something else to occupy ourselves."

"You know," Maura said, her voice dropping half an octave, "if you want to conduct a scientific inquiry to measure satisfaction in the new bed, first you need to perform a set of control group experiments."

Jane grinned as she slowly pulled the covers over their heads. "Well then, Dr. Isles, I hereby donate my body to science."

The End

A/N: Thanks very much to everyone who wrote and reviewed-it was much, much appreciated. I don't know if we'll revisit this little universe often, but it means the world to me to share mine with you.


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